Racing and gendering the nation: Bad Bunny, the American Right and the 2026 Super Bowl controversy

This commentary looks at how the February 2026 Super Bowl became centre stage for conflicting interpretations of American national identity. It analyses the American Right’s outrage at the National Football League’s (NFL) invitation of the Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny to perform at the game’s halftime show. For the American Right, the author argues, any artist who sings exclusively in Spanish, embraces sexual minorities, exhibits gender fluidity, expresses pride in Puerto Rican identity and openly criticises Donald Trump’s policies was an unacceptable choice to perform in such a prestigious venue where only a narrow reading of American identity should be displayed. The author shows that whilst the official national narrative claims that American identity is based on a shared set of ideological beliefs rather than inherited traits, the controversy over Bad Bunny’s pending performance displayed that the principles of liberty, democracy and equality are reserved for a select group of citizens. This telling episode reveals that American society continues to diverge into two irreconcilable camps in the ongoing ‘culture wars’. Whilst one is narrowly ascriptive, racially limited, staunchly heteronormative and inherently anti-egalitarian, its nemesis is proudly egalitarian, enthusiastically multicultural and multiracial.